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Connector versus connection

This page describes the difference between the terms connector and connection. Before using Integration Connectors, it is important for you to understand this difference.

A connector provides connectivity to a specific data source. And each data source has a different connector. For example, the Salesforce connector provides connectivity to a Salesforce instance and a BigQuery connector provides connectivity to a BigQuery instance. However, a connector in itself doesn't connect to any data source. To access the data source, you need to create a connection for the required connector.

You can think of a connection as an instance of a connector type that actually accesses the data source. To access a data source, you must create a connection to the data source by using the corresponding connector. For example, to access a Salesforce instance, you must create a Salesforce connection. Based on your requirement, you can create multiple connections for a connector type, and each connection is uniquely identified by its name. For example, you can have salesforce_connection_01, salesforce_connection_02, and salesforce_connection_03 connections, where each connection accesses a different Salesforce instance.

Therefore, at a fundamental level, if you are managing your connectors, it means you are in effect managing the connections.